To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

Muhammad Ahmed, 15, was one of three children who were tossed from the attic window of his burning house Wednesday morning onto the frigid asphalt below.

They all survived, nursing cuts and bruises.

“I have severe back pain right now, really hurting,” said Ahmed. “But thank God I’m okay. I’m mad happy I didn’t die or anything.”

Ahmed’s father, Muhammad Qasim says in the chaos of mounting heat and smoke that broke out just before 7 a.m., he made a split-second decision to do the unthinkable.

“I threw my children from the window,” said Qasim.

By the time his children made it to the ground, dozens of firefighters had arrived.

All 13 of the house's occupants, two families related to each other, made it out safely. Four had to be rescued by firefighters.

New York City Fire Department officials say a six-inch space in between the home and the next-door building acted like a funnel for the fire, allowing the flames to spread to two floors of the apartment building next door.

“It's common,” said FDNY Deputy Chief Michael Ajello. “Wherever there's a space, it will go. But the units quickly extinguished the fire, which kind of made the problems a little less.”

A lucky day, says the deputy chief. And that's Qasim's take-away from all this.

He said after he made sure his children survived their fall, he looked up -- and saw the FDNY's flashing lights.

“Thank God they came here soon,” said Qasim.

Amazingly only one injury was reported from this fire, and that was a small child who also had to jump from a window for his life and is being treated at the hospital for a minor injury.

Fire investigators are still working to determine the cause, and now, a family that's called this place home for 10 years begins to look for another one.